


Five Times the Boners were Awkward (+1 Time They Weren't)

by lastSaskatchewanPirate



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Awkward Boners, Awkward Flirting, D-16 - Freeform, Eventual Happy Ending, M/M, Megatronus - Freeform, eventual UST, eventual rst, meet cute, orion pax - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-01 15:25:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15146087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastSaskatchewanPirate/pseuds/lastSaskatchewanPirate
Summary: The title pretty much says it all: five times Optimus Prime and Megatron had very awkward encounters with each other; and one time the encounter started awkward and didn't stay that way for long.





	1. Chapter 1

The first time Orion Pax met the mech who would call himself Megatronus, it was an unmitigated disaster.

At least, it was a disaster for Orion. No one else in the Archive noticed or cared, so his disaster at least had the virtue of being private; but that meager consolation was no comfort during the commission of said disaster, and was only of minor solace later when Orion had the opportunity to suffer through the whole thing again courtesy of a brutal series of recharge fluxes.

And the day had started so promisingly, too. Traffic on the main freeway through Iacon had been unusually light due to the upcoming holiday weekend, and Orion had consequently gotten to work early enough to claim the last oil cake with cobalt sprinkles at the commissary. He was able to sit at his favorite terminal – the one nearest the window with a view of the courtyard and its fountains – and no one had “borrowed” and subsequently failed to return the compressed-archive passkey this week (not that it mattered; the compressed archives were for data that was rarely if ever accessed, and the odds of someone coming in with a request for Kaonian census data or obscure mineral-rights deed transfers were so low as to be negligible.)

The day was off to a good start; and then that mech walked in and ruined it utterly.

The first Orion knew of any of this was a marked uptick in the background chatter; he devoted a few extra processor cycles to parsing it as he worked, but the gist seemed to be primarily curiosity and surprise rather than alarm, so he deprioritized it in his queue and kept working. Praxian contract law was notoriously complex and circuitous, and missing even a minor glyph-clause could result in the contract being misfiled, thereby leading to confusion and disputes further down the chain, all of which were to be avoided at all costs.

Orion was, therefore, deeply embroiled in unpacking a particularly dense set of nested sub-clauses when someone at his elbow cleared their throat.

Orion rose far enough out of the glyphs to realize that he had four pings of increasing urgency queued up on his HUD, and that clearly someone had grown impatient enough to interrupt him in person. On the other hand, he had no intention of losing his place in this Primus-damned tangle of nested clauses, so he pinged back a quick “busy” and kept going; he was close enough to the terminal suffix that he could almost taste it …

The mech at his elbow cleared their throat again.

Orion flattened his armor, tilted his audial finials back at an irritated seventy-three degree angle, and resent the “busy” ping with an extra stress-lock for good measure.

The mech fidgeted. Orion ignored them for the remaining microseconds required to complete the unpacking, tagged the whole mess appropriately, and filed it in the appropriate requisition structure before turning at last to see who had been pestering him.

“Yes?” said Orion politely. The little mech staring back at him was clearly agitated, given the way their visor was flickering; to say nothing of the hand-wringing and foot-shuffling.

“Orion Pax?” said the mech, and then looked back over one shoulder as though expecting a spark-eater to pop out of a ceiling vent.

“Yes?” said Orion, slightly less politely.

“Do you – can – I mean, there’s …” The mech reset their vocalizer with a crackle of static and tried again. “Do you know how to access the compressed archives? Only there’s someone here who’s requesting information from them, and I don’t know how to get to it, and also he’s kind of … uh. Intimidating?” The last word squeaked a little on its way out.

Orion took pity on the little mech. “It’s alright,” he assured them. “I do know how to access the compressed archives. Would you like to refer the request to me?”

The mech sagged in obvious relief. “Oh Primus, thank you, yes,” and the request transfer popped up on Orion’s HUD, blinking a cue for acceptance. “I just … I … uh. Thank you, I’ll just go back to … um. Yes.”

Orion stared quizzically after the retreating mech.

Well. That was interesting.

The transferred request indicated that the “intimidating” petitioner was waiting in the main atrium, which was unusual; normally mechs coming in to request information were sent directly to the appropriate department. Orion shrugged mentally and unfolded himself from his workstation; he was a hauler frame, not a usual sight in the Archive and certainly not the usual model to be found working there; it caused its own set of problems, generally those related to scale and the fact that he was several times the size of the rest of the Archive staff, but on the rare occasion it also had its benefits. A petitioner would have to be an unusual specimen indeed to intimidate him.

*

The petitioner was, in fact, an unusual specimen.

Also, _intimidated_ might not have been the most accurate word to describe Orion’s reaction.

Said petitioner was waiting patiently in the main atrium, although Orion had to recheck the pending request several times to be certain, because the hulking heavy-labor frame being highlighted by the “petition” tag in his HUD was so incongruous that he initially thought he was having some sort of glitch.

Apparently not. Well, the Archives and the information they contained were available to all mechs; certain levels of data retrieval and decryption, however, required the assistance of an archivist like Orion. If this labor frame – were those hi-viz stripes? Holy Primus, was he a _miner_? – wanted access to information, then Orion would provide that access to the best of his ability.

“Good morning.” Orion walked up and took no small pleasure in the flash of surprise on the big mech’s face at being confronted with someone of relatively comparable stature – the miner was a full helm taller than Orion and almost twice as massive, but the difference was negligible in comparison to the rest of the Archive staff.

A frisson of embarrassment tingled down Orion’s spinal struts as he realized that he was also taking no small pleasure in the fact that this other mech was so much bigger – that he was standing beside someone and looking _up_ to meet his eyes, that this other mech’s shoulders were broader than Orion’s own and he was clearly strong enough to lift Orion off his feet and what would it _feel like_ to be clasped by hands that big – and Orion needed to get hold of his EM field right now before he ended up broadcasting carnal interest to the entire atrium.

The big miner’s eyes were red – unusual here in Iacon, but standard for low-light work – and Orion firmly convinced himself he was projecting his own feelings into that perceived spark of interest in them.

“Good morning,” said the big miner, and his voice was gravel and thunder and Orion throttled his suddenly-rampaging libido and locked his knees and summoned his very best (albeit tissue-thin) veneer of indifferent professionalism in order to reply without squeaking.

He smiled genially, instead. “I understand you have a data requisition request?” There: nice and professional. Excellent.

The miner nodded, all business, and clearly Orion and his overactive imagination had indeed been making something out of nothing. “Yes, I do; the archivist to whom I originally spoke said something about the compressed archives, and that he needed assistance …?”

“Yes, that’s right.” Orion gestured for the miner to accompany him, crossing the atrium and heading for the compressed-archive data clusters deep within the Archive’s central core. “In order to facilitate access to data which is in higher demand, we compress and archive other data which has significantly less-frequent requisition requests. Not all archivists are familiar with the retrieval protocols necessary to search and retrieve such data.”

The miner was following him and had opened his mouth to reply when they were both rudely interrupted by an urgent shout.

Orion turned quickly to see the on-duty security guard hustling toward them, and gave the guard a quizzical stare.

The guard looked about as frazzled as Orion felt, which honestly was something of a relief – at least he wasn’t the only one whose morning had been abruptly turned on its proverbial ear. “Sorry, sir,” said the guard to Orion, flicking a wary glance at the big miner beside him, “but uh … you … where are you planning to go, exactly?”

Orion stared at him, nonplussed. “He has requested information from the compressed archives,” he said slowly, “so we’re going to the compressed-archive data cluster to retrieve it.”

“Are you—“ The guard glanced warily at the miner again. “—wouldn’t it be better if the, uh … the _petitioner_ waited in the atrium?”

Orion stared at the guard some more. The guard wilted slightly. “No,” said Orion, in the tone of voice he might have used on an obstreperous sparkling who was trying to negotiate for five more minutes past bedtime and one more drink, “it wouldn’t. For one, I need to confirm with him that I am retrieving the correct information. And, more importantly, the Archive is explicitly open to all petitioners of publicly-available information. We don’t ask anyone to wait in the atrium while their request is being retrieved. For _any_ reason.” He followed up with an extra stare, just in case.

The guard finally demonstrated enough sense to know that he was beaten, and retreated to the security of his post.

Orion, fuming, led the big miner into the compressed-archive data cluster. A few archivists briefly intersected their path and then hurriedly diverged again without comment or interaction. Given that Orion’s EM field was in a state that could only barely be described politely as “tumultuous,” their reticence was unsurprising but welcome.

The door to the data cluster opened readily to Orion’s transmitted ident code, and he strode across the chamber to an access terminal and plugged in.

“All right,” said Orion, “let’s –“

“Thank you,” interrupted the miner in that landslide voice, and Orion looked at him, surprised; he’d been silent since the altercation with the security guard, and Orion had assumed that the miner was too distressed and embarrassed to break their silence. Now, looking at him, Orion could see that yes, there was distress and embarrassment, but more than that: there was determination and quiet, solid strength, and gratitude, and … something like appreciation.

“You’re welcome?” It came out a question in surprise, and the miner smiled crookedly.

“For this,” he clarified, gesturing to the chamber and the access terminal, “and for out there. I … had expected the guard’s reaction. I didn’t expect yours.”

Orion stared at the miner a moment longer, and then surprised himself yet again by saying, “I’ve been there. Not often,” he added quickly, “or as … well, as bad as that. But … I’ve been there, a bit. I’m a hauler; I used to work on the docks unloading energon. No one believed that I could become an archivist, but I studied and passed my tests and … well, they still didn’t believe it.” The old frustration seethed up with the memories, and Orion took a deep breath and settled them again. “But I was lucky, and found a mentor, and … well, now I’m here.” He shrugged a little, helplessly.

“I’m grateful,” said the miner quietly, and he offered his hand. “D-16.”

“Orion Pax,” said Orion, and reached out to clasp that huge, work-roughened hand in his own; that earlier frisson returned with interest at the realization that he couldn’t actually close his hand around D-16’s, that the miner’s hand was so much bigger than his own and _rough_ , and what would that feel like …

Orion stomped ruthlessly on his libido and shoved it back into its cage, where it hunkered down and growled and threatened dire vengeance at some spectacularly inappropriate time.

He reset his vocalizer with a staticky little click and turned back to the terminal. “All right, then, let’s see what you’re looking for …” The request tags began scrolling across his HUD, and Orion had to bite the inside of his lip to keep from gaping in shock.

Census records from Kaon, Tarn, Uraya, Tessarus. Mineral-rights deed transfers. Senatorial voting records from those districts, specifically pertaining to mineral rights and the transfer thereof. And …

“… epic love poetry of the First Golden Age?”

D-16 blinked at him. “ _That’s_ the query that merits a remark?”

Orion flailed a bit for a good response and then, failing utterly to find one, gave up. “It’s just … the rest kind of hang together logically, but … love poetry?”

D-16 looked at him askance for one quiet moment, and then smiled – a little shy, a little cocky, a little unquantifiable, and Orion was forced to do a manual override on his cooling fans.

“I don’t believe that we’re intended for nothing more than the work our alt-modes accommodate,” D-16 said quietly, with the sort of care one might expect from someone positing a nigh-seditious thesis. “If I was meant to do nothing but break rocks until deactivation, then why am I able to dream of better things?”

“Hence the … the Senate records and deed transfers?”

D-16 made a weighing gesture with one big hand. Orion tried not to fixate on the smooth rotation of massive servos and the fine articulation of sensitive joints, and failed utterly. “Well, yes, that too; but you were asking specifically about the poetry.”

It was a perfectly simple, perfectly innocent sentence, and it should not have prompted heat to burst through Orion’s frame and lines and struts as it did; but oh, there was such a knowing look in those red eyes, and that voice was so low and rough and strangely intimate in this little chamber, and that big frame was so close and so warm …

And then the smile lost its shyness entirely and became purely wicked, and _oh Primus_ Orion was in trouble. “In fact, I may have dabbled in writing a bit myself from time to time – would you like to hear it?”

_Oh please yes_ , shouted Orion’s entire limbic system. Orion’s vocalizer, on the other hand, locked up completely and produced nothing more constructive than a few embarrassing clicking sounds until he forcibly rebooted it.

“I,” said Orion, and tried another soft reboot to clear the static from his voice, “ah, yes. I would … like that. But, uh … perhaps I should … finish this retrieval for you first?”

_Or maybe you could just bend me over this terminal and have your wicked way with me right now_ , Orion thought a little hysterically, _and recite some of that poetry while you’re at it. Or census data. Fuck, read your grocery list in that voice and I’m yours_.

There was no way D-16 could actually have heard that, Orion knew, but damn if that wicked little smirk didn’t become just a bit more wicked. “Of course. I should stop interrupting you.”

“Yes,” said Orion, half his attention on the record decryption and the rest devoted to not ogling his client, which left no attention whatsoever left over for actually talking. “I mean, no, you’re not interrupting me; I should … uh. Focus on this request, though; make sure I don’t miss anything …?”

It was a very standard, frankly boring encryption algorithm; none of this data was at all sensitive or restricted in any way, it just was never requested or examined or thought about by anyone – except, obviously, for someone whose life was directly impacted by the events that this data codified in cold, detached statistics, someone with enough curiosity and determination to figure out what he needed to know and to follow through …

Orion unpacked and decrypted and sorted and filed and finally packaged all the requested data – including that delightfully anomalous ancient poetry ( _erotic_ love poetry, he realized upon skimming a few selections, a discovery which did not help his composure in the slightest) – and transmitted it via short-range databurst to D-16, who riffled through it quickly with a rumbling, infrasonic hum of approval.

“Thank you,” he said, and again offered his hand to Orion. Orion clasped it, almost numb with the effort of controlling his responses to this mech, and D-16 smiled again – the slightly shy one this time – and then pinged Orion with a personal comm code.

Orion blinked up at him.

“In case you would like to hear some poetry,” said D-16. “Say, tomorrow night, in the off-shift? If you’re free.”

“Yes,” said Orion. Who the hell knew if he was free; it didn’t matter, he would make sure to be free tomorrow night if he had to quit his job in order to assure it. “Yes, I’m free.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Orion Pax takes the field as Optimus Prime, and Megatron likes what he sees.

The first time Megatron faced the newly-elevated Optimus Prime on the battlefield, it was a complete disaster.

The battle itself wasn’t actually a disaster; that part at least was fine, the Decepticons quit the field that day with only minor injuries and almost all of the mission goals accomplished, so perhaps “disaster” was too harsh a word …?

… no, actually, “disaster” was exactly harsh enough.

It had all started out so well, too. Starscream was actually following the damn plan for once – not a complete surprise, since he had been partially responsible for developing it, but even then it was uncertain whether he’d decide in the middle of an assault to do something completely insane that would either yield brilliant results or doom them all to fiery death and humiliation. Their intel had been accurate to the centimeter and to the second regarding personnel schedules, supply distribution, and time until backup could arrive; and with Soundwave playing merry hell with the target’s communications grid, significant alteration to any of those variables was nigh impossible.

And then that mech walked in and ruined everything.

It would have been far better if Optimus Prime had actually _walked_ in, but clearly his recent ascent to the Primacy had rendered him incapable of taking such mundane action, and he had instead made his entrance by means of a one hundred meter vertical plummet from an aerial transport. (Said aerial transport was in the process of being shredded into its component parts – and, in some cases, atoms – by Starscream and his trine, who had clearly decided that anything finding itself more than a body-length off the ground was an aerial target and therefore fair game. They were doing a brilliant job of it, so Megatron hadn’t objected.)

Optimus left a not-unimpressive crater when he landed, capturing the attention of every single mech on the battlefield when he precipitated himself into the fight, and there was a moment of awed silence as the dust cleared and the last of the Primes was revealed in his brand-spanking-new glory.

… in retrospect, applying the word _spanking_ might have been a tactical error.

Megatron honestly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as the figure of blazing righteousness was revealed. On the one hand, he was looking at a significantly-upgraded Orion Pax, an Orion Pax with battle-grade armor instead of labor-class plating, an Orion Pax who could survive a dozen rounds in the Kaon Arena and still be shiny by the end of it, an Orion Pax who could go toe-to-toe with him – Megatron, the Slag-Maker, the champion gladiator, the unstoppable force – and maybe even come out on top …

… that was another poor choice of words, Megatron realized, a combination of words that he should never have allowed to pass through his conscious processing, because the host of utterly filthy imagery that followed was extremely distracting and this was a particularly terrible time to be distracted by thoughts of topping and bottoming and _just how slick is all that shiny new plating anyway_?

On the one hand, he was looking at Orion Pax: his friend, his partner, his one-time lover. On the other hand, he was looking at Orion Pax: the traitor who stabbed him in the back and took the Primacy and sold out their cause to the corrupt Senate, and Megatron owed that slagger – owed him pain and blood and death.

Also, the battlemask was new and a nice touch and was giving Megatron some very kinky ideas right now.

Megatron ground his teeth, shoved his libido into the deepest, darkest pit of processing purgatory he had, and strode forward to meet his match.

“Well, if it isn’t the exalted Optimus Prime,” he jeered in the most deliberately provocative – _not like that_! – tone he could muster. “We’re so honored you could join us … I assume you’re here to make us see the error of our wicked ways?”

Optimus Prime glared at him, blue optics blazing with righteous indignation, and took up a Power Stance that would have made a pro dom need to sit down and rethink their choices; and _Primus_ but Megatron was regretting a huge part of his misspent youth in the shadier portions of society, because the library of sexually-charged imagery he’d been left with was _so incredibly unhelpful right now_.

“Megatron,” said Optimus Prime in a voice that made Megatron’s knee joints try to simultaneously buckle and fuse solid, which was similarly unhelpful in the extreme, “as leader of the Autobot forces, I command you to stand down. Surrender now and submit to justice, or face the consequences.”

The combination of deep resonant voice and suggestive verbiage – at least from the perspective of someone who dabbled enthusiastically in the murky waters of power-exchange and bondage – left Megatron with several urgent over-pressure warnings from various systems cluttering up his HUD.

Clearly, a change of plans was in order.

Megatron activated his comms. ::Soundwave, report.::

::Primary mission objectives achieved. No casualties on our side.::

::Excellent. Direct our forces to withdraw; I’ll keep the Prime’s attention elsewhere.::

Soundwave was very good at communicating a considerable amount of data and analysis in very few words. He was also very good at communicating a considerable amount of censure in no words at all.

::… shut up,:: Megatron added. It was a tragically lame comeback, and he knew it, and at least Soundwave was merciful enough to continue not saying anything; and then it didn’t matter either way, because he was within swinging distance of the Prime and swing he did, all that pent-up fury and rage and frustration behind the blow, and then they were engaged and there was no time for anything but the fight.

Peripherally, Megatron was aware of Soundwave calling the retreat; of his forces quitting the field, objectives met and casualties avoided; of the Seeker trines providing cover against opportunistic Autobot snipers; but Optimus Prime was there in front of him, demanding the greatest part of his attention, fully fueled and powered up and ready to fight. Gone was the mild-mannered archivist, the good-natured dock worker, the friend and companion and partner in activism, and in their place was this steely-eyed puppet of the corrupt Functionist Council who shrugged off Megatron’s blows like they were love-taps from a minibot and swung a sword like … like …

… like a fragging dock worker turned archivist, Megatron realized with sudden horrible glee. Like a mech who had been upgraded to a warbuild frame, but no one had thought to give him the basic battlefield upload packs, to say nothing of actual _training_.

Like a figurehead – ornamental and inspiring, but ultimately useless.

Megatron was not shiny. Megatron was not pretty and sleek and upgraded to inspire his troops. Megatron still had residual traces of hi-viz markings under the war paint and weld scars, and he was only shiny in places where he’d had to have plating replaced recently, or where friction had burnished away the scuffs and scratches of the mines and the Arena. Megatron had spent thousands of years fighting one-on-one in the Arena; he knew intimately how to fight, how to kill, how to survive.

He also knew how to put on a show.

He wanted the attention of the Autobots on this fight, not on his retreating troops or their spoils. He wanted the attention of the Prime on this fight – on _him_ – because he protected his own, dammit, and because the slagging Prime had been one of his own and had betrayed him utterly … 

… and because he really wanted to get his hands on that sleek, shiny aft.

Optimus tucked his elbows and blocked the rain of body shots – quick, hard, distracting – that Megatron was bestowing on him. He managed to sidestep and sneak in an uppercut, and Megatron’s outer thoracic plating buckled under the impact; but Optimus had left himself open and took an elbow to the side of the head that knocked him back, staggering and angry.

Megatron fought carefully, calculatedly, and above all conspicuously. As the Decepticon forces faded imperceptibly from the battlefield, Autobots searching for more opponents to rout were instead finding their attention captured by the two sides’ respective leaders locked in combat that would not have looked at all out of place under the arena’s arc lights. It had been a long, long time since he’d had the leisure to fight like this, Megatron realized, and he was actually quite enjoying it; there was a theatrical grandeur that actual military combat utterly lacked, not to mention a nigh-certainty that he was going to come out on top.

… really should avoid that phrase, though.

He had just completed a rather dramatic disarm that had sent Optimus Prime’s blaster flying in a beautiful demonstration of ballistic trajectories, and then punched the Prime in the face for good measure, when Soundwave broke in over comms.

::Extraction successful. No other Decepticons remain in the field. Analysis indicates optimal time for Megatron to break off as well.::

Megatron ignored the broad hint in that last bit. ::Understood. Ending this farce now.::

A quick weight shift, a deftly-positioned knee, and Optimus Prime found himself on his back, pinned beneath Megatron’s weight; his entire pelvic span was immobilized and one leg was extended enough to leave him unable to flip their position, and Megatron was grinning down at him, eyes blazing and teeth bared in an expression so openly _hungry_ that Optimus was stunned beneath him, staring up with awe and no little hunger of his own.

“You could have ended this any time,” he said, indignation warring with dismay and humiliation. “You drew this out on purpose, didn’t you!”

Megatron’s grin broadened obnoxiously. “It’s almost as though you know me, Prime.”

Optimus glared up at him, mask snapping back to better communicate his rampaging ire. “Were you trying to rub in just how inexperienced I am?”

“Not at all – though it was a welcome bonus, now that you mention it.” The mention of _rubbing_ was perhaps less welcome, given their current positioning and the fact that popping his spike panel on the battlefield was considered déclassé, if nothing else. “Go on,” said Megatron, still grinning. “Guess.”

Optimus stared at him for a moment, and then his eyes closed and his head thunked back against the churned-up ground beneath him. “You were distracting us to get your people away.”

“Very good, Prime; there may be hope for you yet.” A brief databurst from Soundwave had him shifting his weight to rise, still keeping Optimus pinned beneath him – and oh, wasn’t that a lovely thought, he’d be revisiting that one later for sure. “Try not to get yourself killed too soon, I’d be disappointed if I didn’t get a rematch once you’ve learned a thing or two.”

Optimus made a scoffing noise even as his shoulders were being pressed into the dirt. “Bold words for someone about to find himself in an Autobot prison cell, Megatron. In case you hadn’t noticed, your people have quit the field, but mine are still here.”

“Very perceptive of you – but ultimately it makes no difference.” Megatron stooped closer, almost nose to nose, looking directly into Optimus’s eyes. “You will never take me alive,” he growled, “and you haven’t the forces to kill me. I will see you again, Optimus Prime,” and as the Autobots converging on their position shouted in alarm and outrage, and a distinctive purple flash and the _vwop_ of displaced air announced Skywarp’s arrival, Megatron ducked in the final infinitesimal distance and kissed Optimus full on the mouth.

He was still laughing at the Autobots’ expressions when Skywarp teleported them both to safety.


End file.
